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Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Monaco, Eze and Nice

On Sunday we headed off to Monarco, Eze and Nice as a tour, with a guide.

This was one of the last minute tours we organised and at 6:30 am on Sunday it was freezing as the "mistral" blew I was wondering what on earth we were thinking

Our apartment was warm and snug

Anyway we jumped in our hire car and headed over the Luberon mountains to Aix en Provence where we were meeting our tour.

We arrived with time to spare, Gadget is always early, as we waited outside the Apple shop for our bus the wind was howling and it was could enough to freeze . . . . Well it was pretty darn cold.

Anyway we found a very cute little brasserie, and after a hot chocolate and a croissant we were both feeling a lot warmer.

We got the tour bus to our selves and we headed off for the two hour drive to Monaco, with the aim to arrive in time for the changing of the guard. Our driver / guide told us all about the area as we drove along, but we worked out pretty quickly whilst he could speak English, but he really didn't understand a lot, however we were fortunate to have a second tour guide who was learning about that tour and he had lived in Australia, so all was good.

Monaco

The changing of the guard outside Monarco's royal palace. It was pretty interesting. I just loved the bells from their bell tower that toll every 15 minutes.

Just a few toys moored in the harbour, gadget and I thought we could probably afford two or three . . .

Monte Carlo casino, I took this photo from the wrong angle, all the other boys toys were on the other side of the road. A few Porsches, Lamborghini s and Mercedes.

After we left Monte Carlo we visited the quant little village of Eze, it really is just tiny little dwellings built onto the side of a rock, lots of super cute little shops and restaurants. With absolutely amazing views.

Back on the mini bus and we set off for

Nice

Nice was huge, there was building' s as far as we could see and so many people.

The water was the most beautiful shades of blue and as it was Sunday Everyone was out strolling on the Promenade, and sunbaking on the beach.

Now call me spoilt, but I can't imagine it is really comfortable sunbaking on pebbles, but the locals here were snoozing away quite happily. It was nice to walk along the shore without taking my shoes off though. At one point we seen there were sun lounges for hire, just a mere 10€ ($15 au) an hour. There were a few occupied, if you snoozed there you would need to set an alarm . . . .otherwise it

could get a little expensive.

The French Riviera was stunning, however after only just over an hour strolling along the promenade and into a few back streets to look at some shops we had to get back on the road.

We returned to Aix en Provence at about 7pm, thank goodness it doesn't get dark here until about 9pm because we had to drive back across the mountains to get home. When we returned to the car , which was parked underground our GPS decided it was time to add some excitement to our day and she wouldn't locate the satellites, so here we are in a totally strange town, no internet for google maps , no real maps . . . The stress levels were a little high. Fortunately after about 20 mins the GPS got her act together and we were right to go, but lesson learned . . . One of us needs to have access to google maps.

So as soon as we get to a bigger town again, we will get one organised for Italy.